[STOP BRINGING IT BACK!] she screams and then promptly explodes.
Not literally explodes in the ‘flesh flew everywhere’ kind of way. But power and heat burst from her in a calamitous wave of rolling fire that blows me backward and gives me a thorough roasting at the same time. Pain erupts all over my frame as my carapace sizzles, the organs and muscle beneath rise to a temperature they don’t like to operate at. I’m a smoking ruin of an ant! She did that in an instant!
“Vibrant! Are you alright?”
“Fine-fine! I’m too fast!”
“HCK! Good for you…”
I cough and a small cloud of smoke is spat out of my mouth. I need healing! I activate my healing gland, the precious fluid that built up since my last use floods into my system. Only half of a full dose, but I’ll take what I can get!
My vision is hazy as the wall of fire that rolled over me toasted my eyes to a degree, but the Mind Bridge is painting a picture of what Garralosh is currently doing.
She is full of rage, thrashing and clawing at the dirt, snapping at the air. Tons and tons of reptile lashing out with all her strength is a heck of a thing to be close to. Her anger is cataclysmic. The ground shakes. The air fills with the sound of her fury. She’s like a natural disaster made manifest, a titan, something primordial from before the gods were born.
All I can do is try to keep my feet and scramble to create some distance as I heal up. I really need to thank the unshakeable faith the colony has in me at this point. Their energy continues to flood my body, healing me and restoring my reserves. I’m not sure why they have faith in me right now. I’m not sure I would!
My eyes come back into focus and I can see Garralosh in all her fury. Her eyes are mad with rage as she unleashes her terrifying strength in an uncontrolled frenzy. So strong is she, her strikes into the ground cause shockwaves that collapse the colony’s tunnels beneath us. Long sections of ground fall straight down to create troughs and trenches where before there was only flat earth.
She’s not liking this! I would go so far as to say that she’s really hating it…
I should keep going!
My sub-brains continue to churn out magic. The most powerful of them is maintaining and operating the Mind Magic Construct on its own while the other two cooperate to weave together the sensations and illusions. It appears as if the Vestibule is also supporting my brains, as even they seem to be holding up under the strain of constant spell weaving admirably well. The Vestibule is the gift that keeps on giving!
The ground around Garralosh is destroyed, burnt and thrashed into a mess. She doesn’t look like she’s going to stop any time soon. With Vibrant behind me, keeping her Speed Aura covering me, I decide to go in for another hit and run. I need to take every opportunity to do damage!
As I Dash, I smack her with more memories from Earth. Cola. Fast food. Couches. Television. Sports. Anything I think she might be able to remember. Anything that might disrupt her thinking.
As the barrage of Mind Magic slams home, I maintain a little distance, just in case she decides to explode again, but she doesn’t. I’ll have to take a chance.
CHOMP! CHOMP!
At this close range, I decide to take a risk and do something different. I raise my abdomen up and lower the front sections of my body to improve the angle and expose my business district. Even with just this position, I can easily fire my acid straight forward thanks to my new additions!
POW! POW! POW! POW!
I rapid-fire a few blasts of my new and improved merchandise straight into the wounds I just caused before I turn and Dash away as fast as I can. A ripple of pain runs through the enormous frame of Garralosh as the acid eats into her. Why isn’t she healing? She must have a healing gland of some description, surely…
All the while, I continue to send a constant stream of Mind Magic across the bridge. Any impression, any thought or sensation that might work, I package it up and blast it across. I can feel it impact against her mind. Each time the magic hits home, her thoughts shudder away from it, desperately trying to protect herself from remembering what her life had been like.
Then something changes. Her mind opens up, reaches out across the Mind Bridge and seizes hold of mine. I’m a mouse gripped in the fist of a gorilla. What the hell is happening? She batters me with her pain and fury, turning her madness into a weapon she uses to beat me right in the mind.
You want to play this way? I doubt you know Mind Magic like I do! If she’s going to open herself up to me like this, then I’m going to step on through.
All four of my minds switch focus and my body grows completely still as I spin together a spell of incredible complexity. When it’s finished, it appears like a ship woven together of spider thread. I put myself aboard and launch it across the bridge, straight into the mind of the maddened croc.
148. The Person Within
I’d not attempted this spell before, but I’ve known how to do it since my Mind Magic Affinity Skill ranked up. Essentially, the spell allows the wielder to invade the mind of the other. Garralosh has almost successfully done something similar with pure, raw emotion, but my attempt is more sophisticated. Since she opened herself up by exploding across the bridge, I’d be a fool to throw away the opportunity.
Matching the titanic croc physically is impossible. I need to use other methods, and this could be my silver bullet.
Borne on a gleaming craft of pure Mind Mana, my consciousness crosses the bridge and plunges deep into the turbulent waters of Garralosh’s mind. It’s a weird sensation, I have to say. My body fades away from my thoughts and I no longer receive feeling or sensation from it. The pains, aches and general rush of sensory information are gone and the universe turns black.
Then like a diver knifing into water, I pierce the barrier around my enemy’s thoughts and I’m beset on all sides by her emotions. Let me get this out of the way. She’s nuts. It’s madness in here! Everywhere, I sense violent, roiling emotions that smash into the spell that shields my mind. Flashes of memory appear and disappear with explosive speed. Each one a shard that stabs toward me in an attempt to hurt and maim.
I see Garralosh, large and powerful, feasting on the broken remains of a gigantic, multi-headed centipede. Wounds cover her frame, but the exultation of victory burns in her chest as she gulps down the Biomass.
A flash and then another memory surfaces.
Croca-beasts quiver in fear as I look down on them through their mother’s eyes. All she feels is rage, hunger and a drag on her soul that never seems to cease. Beneath her front feet, pinned to the floor, is a commander, heavily wounded. With a savage twist of her claws, its life is over and it’s time to feast.
A human wields a massive axe like an extension of his own body, his movements powerful and fluid. He’s impossibly strong and batters Garralosh away when she pushes close. Her mind is afire with a desperate, frantic yearning. She’s so close. The deep tunnels are just beyond her reach! With a flash, the human vanishes from her sight and an explosion of pain shatters her mind. One of her limbs is gone.
I shove these memory shards away and push deeper, plunging my spell further into the recesses of her mind. I’m a ship’s captain sailing directly into the teeth of a hurricane. The further I go, the more her memories batter me in attempts to drag me down. But I press forward. If I can get deep enough, I can seize her mind. In the best-case scenario, I’ll be able to seize control of her body. She won’t be able to move a muscle whilst I chop her down. It’s risky, but any way of fighting her is risky!